Yesterday, I heard the mother of two young kids talk about how her kids played with European-made toys, and educational games, and anything electronic or beeping was banned from her house or had the batteries removed. After I put her on a mental "no fun at parties" list, I found myself thinking about those kids, and the difference between them and my nieces, whose playroom is full of stuff that beeps and whirs and responds to button pushes, often to the point where I feel overwhelmed by it and say "hey, how about these stuffed animals? Or a book?" So it's not like I don't understand where that mother was coming from. But at the same time, I'm awed by how normal smart devices are to my nieces and small cousin. To these kids, most of the things that AT&T promised in those "You will" ads a decade ago, the ones that seemed wildly futuristic back then, are just the way the world works. Of course the car tells you how to get where you're going! Why wouldn't it? And of course there are toys where you push a button and it says a letter or a number or a word. I've seen all three kids figure out how to work complex stuffed animal interfaces (push this button for a lullaby! push this one for a morning song!) well ahead of the adults in the room, and look absolutely delighted at their accomplishments. It seems to me that in trying to protect her kids from the supposedly brain-rotting effects of toys that do some of the work of play for you, not to mention protecting herself from the godawful noise, that mother I heard might actually be hampering her kids in a way, by keeping them from developing an interface literacy that's going to be second nature to all of their peers when they get to school. It's like the kids I grew up with whose parents wouldn't have a TV in the house -- except, instead of not getting shared-reference pop-culture jokes, those kids won't get interface conventions that will be as obvious to their peers as breathing. Assuming we make it that far, of course, the makers of the smart devices of those children's adulthoods will presume that deep interface knowledge, and build on it, and surround them with it, and there won't be someone there to take out the batteries. (Of course, I don't think that's a problem these obviously well-cared-for and thoughtfully-raised children won't be able to live with, and parents should make their own choices about raising their children. Standard disclaimers apply!)

I’m in DC today doing user testing, and I’m grooving on the walk/don’t walk signs with the one-minute countdown that gives you fair warning when the light is going to turn red. I’m torn between wanting them installed in New York immediately, and thinking that if they were installed, they’d just become another way for pedestrians and cars to play chicken with one another.